IDEO's Business Week Cover

10 Jun 2004|Darrel Rhea

OK, we admit it. We’re envious of our friends at IDEO getting a cover story in Business Week. Kudos to IDEO. And kudos to Bruce Nussbaum for highlighting design in a way that millions of readers can relate to.

It gets people thnking and talking about design and that’s gotta be good. It also gives companies like us (Cheskin) an opportunity to show our nuanced approach to research, consumer understanding, and ultimately, design.

What I liked most about the article was that it actually talked about the design process and the way innovation happens, not just the slick output of the process. Those of us who have spent our careers in design know that the clever, elegant, and aesthetically beautiful product represents the tip of an enormous iceberg of activities that are invisible to the lay public. Lurking under the sexy appearance is often years of hard work, thousands of man hours — work done by designers and design researchers whose output is less easy to photograph but is critical none the less.

I also liked how the article was acknowleding a company like IDEO for helping transform business. Cheskin has been doing this for years and it’s why we’ve always been the odd duck out in research circles. The new generation of Designers today are designing businesses. Not just veneer applied to products, not just tinkering with the mechanics of services — We are successfully using the design process to redirect the business enterprise. And leveraging customer insight is the basis for how we are doing it.